Report: Salesforce to Lay Off 700 Employees, Redirect Spending

Salesforce is reportedly laying off 700 employees, or about 1% of its workforce.

The cuts are being made across the company, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported Friday (Jan. 26), citing an unnamed source.

Salesforce did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

The company still has 1,000 jobs open, suggesting this is a routine adjustment of the workforce and Salesforce aims to redirect its spending to other areas, according to the report.

Salesforce laid off 8,000 employees, or 10% of its staff, in January 2023, pointing to a slowdown in sales as customers cut back on their spending.

“[O]ur customers are taking a more measured approach to their purchasing decisions,” Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff said in a Jan. 4, 2023, letter to employees.

When Salesforce made another 50 layoffs in sales and customer success roles in its Irish offices in August, a company spokesperson told PYMNTS: “As part of an ongoing effort to ensure we always have the right resources in place to meet the needs of our customers, we are working through some changes to some of our sales and customer success teams.”

During an August earnings call, Benioff said Salesforce was accelerating its transformation to profitable growth. He said the company underwent restructuring, reignited its performance culture, prioritized core innovations and built stronger relationships with investors as part of that transformation strategy.

Activist investors took stakes in Salesforce last year and pressured Benioff to speed up the increase in the company’s margins, according to Friday’s WSJ report.

The company’s sales took a hit during a slowdown that followed the pandemic, the report said.

In addition to layoffs, Salesforce made other cost-cutting moves in 2023, including reductions in employee travel, real estate and employee retreats.

Several other tech-oriented companies have made layoffs over the last week, including eBay cutting 1,000 employees, or 9% of its staff; Brex laying off 282 people, or 20% of its workforce; Amazon laying off 30 employees, or less than 5% of the staff in its Buy with Prime unit; and Wayfair cutting 1,650 employees, or 13% of its staff.